


The Visitation

by quarterweeb



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, No Dialogue, Poetic, it's unavoidable, like there's one line of dialogue from each so i'm rounding down, listen i'm in a poetry class rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quarterweeb/pseuds/quarterweeb
Summary: He is due to visit her today.[side note: I really don't understand the LN lore or anything, so this isn't meant to be canon! Just felt in the mood to write something nice and poetic after the awful LN2 ending.]
Relationships: Mono/Six (Little Nightmares), The Lady/The Thin Man (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 129





	The Visitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KasugaBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KasugaBee/gifts).



> uh,,, I don't know how to explain this, seriously,,, pretend that six is the lady and mono is the thin man and they're both cool and also dating
> 
> edit: i forgot to say bc i didn't re-find the photo until recently--this work was inspired by KasugaBee's LN fanart, so please check them out!

It's going to be a good day, today. She's expecting him, today.

She sits in front of the vanity with its broken mirror and carefully removes a jeweled comb from its case. The melody that comes to her throat is familiar and mindless. Her hair has grown so much longer now, the very ends brushing the creases of her elbows. She doesn't bother tying it up today: he is a friend, not a Guest.

The routine that she follows is ingrained in her name, ingrained in her place. By now the motions are automatic. Don her kimono, comb her hair, stare at the mounted mask in the foyer and relish the stench of death that still emanates from it.

The owner of the mask died at her teeth a long time ago, back when she was still very, very small. But it was through that death that she gained the abilities that she now wields, to feed on the essence of all living things.

Much has changed since that time, and just as much has stayed the same. Little legs still patter across the metal innards of the Maw, though now they do so with purpose and no fear. The Guests feed, and overfeed, and then she feeds on them and feeds them to the Guests. Such is the cycle and recycle of meat.

Her appetite still cripples her at times, but days like these make her hunger bearable, make her feel that one day she will finally be full and satiated.

She moves through the residence silently. Much has changed, and just as much as stayed the same about it. In all honesty, she didn't have the energy to redesign a space that still seems impossibly big, even now she's grown into it. Portraits litter the walls, statues clutter the hallways. She doubts she’ll ever move them: it’s far too much trouble.

But this room,  _ his  _ room, is barren by design. Four walls, a plain rug, and a selection of cushions along the wall, ripped from old armchairs scattered about the place. In the very center of the room, a squat television sits silently, its unplugged cord stretched out behind it.

The box goes ignored for now as her fingers tiptoe over the cushions. Some of them are dusty: maybe she'll send them to be aired out sometime. Adding cleaning facilities is another thing that she's changed.

After a few moments of indecision, she pulls her choice from the wall and sets it in front of the box. Not too close, or he'll have no space to emerge. Next, to plug in the cord to the wall. The hum of the machinery always starts before the picture snaps on, all static.

She takes her place on the cushion, and waits.

The harsh light dances over the bright yellow of her kimono. The color clashes horribly with her pale, sun-starved skin, but she's too sentimental to let it go: its source is still hanging on a coat rack somewhere in this giant house, too small to wear but too big to throw away.

She waits.

For all the many clocks strewn about, time is fluid in the belly of the metal beast. Even she can't say how long she sits, waiting for him to come to her through the storm on the screen. But she knows he will come, and she will wait until he does.

She waits.

He comes.

The rustle of frequencies warps and pitches high: she resists the urge to lean forward, to plunge her arms through the glass and wire, to pull him the broken box with her bloodied hands.

First his hands, dark shadows in the sea of moving white. Slowly, their image grows sharper, darker, closer, until— 

Like a net dragged from the water, his fingers, then his hands emerge, and then his wrists, and arms. She touches one of his thin wrists briefly, just to let him know that she is still here, that she is ready.

One of his arms retreats, before returning with the rest of his upper body, holding his hat so it isn't knocked off by the low ledge of the TV screen.

He doesn't emerge completely, just enough for him to face her, to touch her, where she sits on her cushion in the barren room.

"Send me a bigger TV and you won't have to duck when you come in," she says, and he smiles, and kisses her.

He tastes like rainwater—does it ever stop raining on the mainland?—rainwater and the chaos that she lusts for, even when she works so hard to keep it from infecting her new home.

"If you insist," he says, his spidery hands stroking over her full cheeks. She does not insist. Already she feels she is asking too much of him; even one more thing would be excessive.

After all, it is he who steals the souls of the soulless to change them into the ravenous. It is he who lures them into the Maw with the promise of full stomachs, and it is he who feeds her. 

She can only bring herself to ask one thing of him when he visits: stories from the mainland. He likes to brush her off, to say that nothing there has changed, but always humors her nonetheless. She knows, even when he does not, that he is lying. To her, without a sky, even the movement of the clouds across the heavens is worth a tale.

So he tells her of the Tower, its signal strong as a beating heart through concrete streets, and the millions of drones who bathe in its blood. He tells her of the thunderstorm that rocked buildings with its groans. He tells her of the butterfly that stopped for a moment on his windowsill, looking for shelter, a spot of blue in a sea of gray.

She listens raptly, her hands never leaving his. She will hold on for as long as she can.

He asks her, too, what goes on inside her metal box of a world, his only blind spot. Her answer is more of the same: little legs, and The Guests, and the cycle and recycle of meat. It’s the most she has talked since the last time he visited, and her throat feels the strain of uncommon use. 

Although she is the one with the appetite, he always looks so hungry when she speaks. Would she mind, she wonders, if he devoured her?

He  _ does  _ devour her, though: with his hands, with his eyes. When the conversation between them lulls, his thin fingers creep across her kimono, through the locks of her long hair. He is so careful with her, and she treasures it as much as she loathes it.

In return, her hands run along his arms, his neck, his face. The fabric of his suit is damp, never allowed to dry in a place where dark skies are too common. She wonders if, somewhere in this prison of a paradise, there is an umbrella large enough for him to take back with him.

Today, or tonight, though, she must send him away without one. Perhaps it’s for the best. He is the only way that the scent of rain reaches her now; it would be a shame to lose.

He resists when she begins to push him back into the electric portal he dangles out of. It’s the only way he fights against her, really, and she relishes the brief conflict just as much as the knowledge that he doesn’t want to leave her.

Her hands start at his shoulders, pushing so much more gently than she is used to pushing. He gives her a look that, on a weaker woman, would win her surrender, his fingers still anchored in the sea of yellow around her bent legs. But she is not a weaker woman; she has never been, and he is well aware of that.

Still, she will not let him go without a parting gift.

She sneaks under the brim of his hat, and meets his lips again. He relaxes against her, his grip loosening, and slowly she urges him back to his domain. Forward, forward, forward, until the warmed lips on hers warp into the cold unyielding screen.

When she opens her eyes, the storm of static has returned, as if it never left.

She sighs, and turns the TV off. Unplugs it. Replaces her sitting cushion along the wall with all the others.

If she didn't push him out, he'd never leave, and they are both so very busy.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are very appreciated, and thank you for reading as always! I'm still mad about the LN2 ending. I DIDN'T WANT A PREQUEL LITTLE NIGHTMARES! AND I ALSO DIDN'T WANT ANGST BETWEEN THE CHILDREN!!


End file.
